Scary Santa and a Recipe

Thought I would share an old picture with you, since my children are too 'old' to have their picture made with Santa these days.
This is a picture of me with that 'scary' Santa! The picture backdrops sure have changed. See the boxes behind Santa's chair?

Thankfully I don't feel that I was terribly traumatized from being made to endure sitting on Santa's lap in 1965.

I can not believe that Christmas is almost here! I still have things to accomplish. I did today however, get a MUCH needed haircut; wrapped my co-workers gifts; checked the stocking stuffers to see if I might need to make that last minute run to get more. Looks like I am set with those. Now I am down to wrapping, finishing up some homemade gifts and baking THE cake. The cake is from a recipe I found in an employee newsletter about 5 years ago. I thought it sounded good and tried it that year, taking it to our family Christmas get together. My sister now requests this cake EVERY year as her 'gift'. I have also baked it for a church bake sale during the holidays and for neighbors. Always during the holidays. So I have re-named the 'recipe' to The Christmas Gift Cake. However here is the recipe with it's original title. It is delicious!

IT WON’T LAST CAKE

Ingredients:
1 1/3 cups vegetable oil
3 cups white sugar (regular sugar)
1 cup crushed pineapples (with juice)
2 cups mashed bananas
1 cup chopped pecans
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt

1 cup maraschino cherries (optional)

Directions: Grease and flour a 9 or 10 inch bundt pan. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix together. (optional: adding one cup maraschino cherries to mixture makes a nice fruit cake.) Pour into prepared bundt pan. Bake for about 1 1/2 hours at 350 degrees. Do not over bake.

This cake is VERY moist and easy to make. I have never added the cherries. Not a big fan of fruit cake. It does bake up 'brown' due to the cinnamon and bananas, I think. Hope you enjoy it.